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Go Green! Recycle New Year’s Resolutions!

Remarkably enough, none of my past new years resolutions has transformed human consciousness to the point of making the resolution obsolete. So if you need one at this late date, here are a few of my past resolution pieces:

One Response to Go Green! Recycle New Year’s Resolutions!

Jarrett, I went back and skimmed the article and comments on LR v Streetcars. Having grown up with streetcars in Wash DC (until they died in Jan 62), I find most of the distinctions invalid because the DC system had, auto free median ROW on wide avenues, off road ROW into the suburbs, tunnels to avoid auto traffic in the core, so leaving out the not yet common transit signal priority or off car fare collection, they had many attributes of what we call Light Rail. After leaving DC, I extensively explored the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia systems which also had similar features as well as classic tracks shared w/ autos. IIRC the term Light Rail was invented as a branding strategy for the San Diego system which was a particular favorite of the right wingers afflicted with affection for rail but dislike of public spending. San Diego was admired for refusing Federal funding in order to buy off the shelf European cars with no accommodation for disabled riders. Light Rail was also touted as being cheaper to build than the hugely over priced BART which had struggled to obtain more funding as the original bond raised money ran out with barely a third of the system complete. Despite that history, most of the LR systems today have heavy duty catenary rather than cheap trolley wire, concrete ties and other expensive infrastructure details making them great sources of patronage contracts.

Of course, whichever term we use, the best systems will employ POP, totally level boarding, reserved ROW whether within streets or not, traffic signal priority, and directly serve large transit magnets such as hospitals, airports, universities, sporting/entertainment venues, and the CBDs.

The Author

Since 1991 I've been a consulting transit planner, helping to design transit networks and policies for a huge range of communities. My goal here is to start conversations about how transit works, and how we can use it to create better cities and towns. Read more.